The works of art in Infinite Blue feature blue in all its variety—a fascinating strand of visual poetry running from ancient times to the present day. In cultures dating back thousands of years, blue—the color of the skies—has often been associated with the spiritual but also signifies power, status, and beauty. The spiritual and material aspects of blue combine to tell us stories about global history, cultural values, technological innovation, and international commerce.

This cross-departmental survey includes objects from our holdings of Asian, African, Egyptian, American, Native American, and European art, among them paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, the decorative arts, illuminated manuscripts, printed books, and contemporary art. It will expand as subsequent chapters unfold, eventually almost filling our first floor.

Generous support for this exhibition is provided by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, an anonymous donor, and Room & Board.

Infinite Blue is part of A Year of Yes: Reimagining Feminism at the Brooklyn Museum, a yearlong series of exhibitions celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.

Christopher Grimes Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle in conjunction with Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, in which he will present a selection of works from the The Garden of Delights series. The Garden of Delights is an early body of work made from the DNA samples of forty-eight participants – sixteen chosen by the artist, each of whom invited two additional participants with whom they would comprise a triptych. Manglano-Ovalle collaborated with a team of laboratory technicians to create the DNA portraits, which were produced as digital prints. While the series visually alludes to abstraction, it conceptually engages with 18th century casta paintings – paintings commissioned by Spanish officials in Spain’s American colonies, which depicted the different racial mixtures that derived from the unions between the three major races, Africans, Spaniards and indigenous peoples. In contrast to the familial subject matter of casta paintings, however, Manglano-Ovalle creates communities of chosen relationships, redefining the idea of family, and effectively challenging the idea of identity both aesthetically and socially.

Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle lives and works in Chicago. He will participate in the forthcoming Chicago Architecture Biennial, was the 2012 winner of a USA Fellow Award, the winner of the 2001 MacArthur Fellowship and has been honored with numerous solo exhibitions including The Black Forest, Museo Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain (2015); Seven Thousand Cords, Chicago Architecture Biennial, Farnsworth House, Plano, IL (2015); Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: Bird in Space at Mach 10, Ernst Schering Foundation, Berlin, Germany (2013); Always After (The Glass House), The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2011); and Gravity is a force to be reckoned with, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, MA (2009). Manglano-Ovalle’s work is in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK), Gent, Belgium; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Bilbao, Spain; and Museo Nacional Centro de arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, among others.

Raffaella Cortese is pleased to announce Kiki Smith’s fourth solo show at the gallery, following her recent participation in the 57th Venice Biennale.

Kiki Smith, an American artist originally from Germany, is one of the most prominent figures in the contemporary art world. Since the late 70s her research has been centered on the study of identity and the iconography of women. In the first part of her artistic career Smith explored the themes of loss and death through the representation of the interior of our bodies, turning her attention to organs, cell structures and the nervous system. In the following years, Smith's work has evolved to include animals, household items and narratives from classical mythology, also giving great importance to femininity in its intimate and social spheres. The artist's career, which has been developing for nearly four decades, is characterized by a great deal of experimentation both in the choice of techniques - painting, sculpture, design and printing - and in the use of non-traditional materials - from glass to bronze, pottery, porcelain, chalk, paper, latex, hair, beeswax and gold.

On the occasion of this exhibition, a number of drawings and sculptures of female faces from 2016 will be on view. The titles of the drawings – Gift, Sense, Utterance, Flurry, Seek, Pathology, Capture, Tilt, Hoping, Future Sense – and those of the sculptures – Send, Surge, Receive, Transmission, Conductor, Foreseen, Shooting Start, Crescent Bird – suggest actions in progress. Consciousness appears to be projected by the faces, which are present in and have similar physiognomic traits thoughout all of the show’s works, except for three of them where a hand, a star and a bird are the protagonists. The actions suggest an exchange, from the interior to the exterior, and vice versa, that doesn’t reveal the truth about our being or the destiny that awaits us, by raising questions about how we experience our body and the world, as Smith herself stated: “they are drawings of heads talking and seeing and receiving and hearing and transmitting and wondering in the world”.

In works of both mediums, the lines are broken and interrupted, highlighting a fragility and dematerialization that insistently reminds us of the fleeting nature of the human condition. Their narratives combine figurative representation and the cold rigor of formal abstraction to make suspended figures emerge in ethereal and timeless atmospheres. The faces, although they appear fragile, vulnerable and melancholic, reveal a tenacious life force and symbolize the nature of human consciousness. These slender and lonely faces live indefinitely, in a world where rationality and intuition, physicality and invisibility are united.

What emerges is the exploration of a place where sculpture and painting converge, asserting an effort that, following a path that’s as varied as it is consistent, emphasizes a fragmented and fragile, yet always tangible, body. The human condition is the cornerstone of Smith’s analysis, in which death, considered an inevitable conclusion, is seen as an integral part of it.

Kiki Smith (Nuremberg, 1954) lives and works in New York. Her most recent solo exhibitions include: Kiki Smith and Paper: The Body, the Muse and the Spirit, Oklahoma State University (2017); Kiki Smith: Breath, Palau de La Música Ofeó Català, Barcelona (2017); Kiki Smith: Transformations, UNT on the Square, University of North Texas, Denton (2014); By the stream, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan (2012); Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona (2012); as Kiki Smith: Her Memory, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2009); as Kiki Smith: Sojourn, Elizabeth A.Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum, New York (2009); Kiki Smith: The Touch of the Eye / The Look of the Hand, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greesboro, North Carolina (2008); Kiki Smith, Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan (2007).
A number of respected museums and institutions have dedicated survey shows to her: the Haus Esters Kunstmuseum in Krefeld (2008-2010), the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice (2005); New York; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (2005-2007); the Museum of Modern Art (2003).
Her works have been included in the public collections of some of the world’s most important museums: the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego. Her work is part of the Viva Arte Viva exhibition curated by Christine Macel at the 57th Venice Art Biennale.